Quoted in “The (Political) Science of Salt” by Gary Taubes:
“Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong. … Also, if the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental results can be made to look like the expected consequences.”
— Richard Feynman, 1964
Wanted to make sure folks caught Coach Glassman’s description in the “Art of Training” of a successful coach running a class that’s “more like a birthday party than a physics lecture”.
My coaching style veers wildly between the two. Watching an athlete push pass their perceived limits is awesome, I’m high as a kite when that happens.
But sometimes that “feeds the beast” and class turns into “The Brian Show.” I know that happens, and it’s something that requires a balance.
The always insightful Doug Chapman actually just wrote a nice article about this: Cheerleading versus Coaching.
In the beginning, I ran WODs like a Physics Class. At that point I wasn’t trying to convince the athletes that I knew what I was talking about, so much as convincing myself.
So what’s the boiled down lesson?
1. Have fun, make it organic.
2. If you asked your athlete at the end of a class “What did you learn?”, make sure they’d be able to give a good answer.
Call out to the morning classes: What’s your Goat?
An excerpt from “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine“, by Micheal Lewis. Published in Vanity Fair and linked to on Crossfit.com:
Inadvertently, he’d opened up a debate with his own investors, which he counted among his least favorite activities. “I hated discussing ideas with investors,” he said, “because I then become a Defender of the Idea, and that influences your thought process.” Once you became an idea’s defender, you had a harder time changing your mind about it.
Zeus’ will that I don’t become a “Defender of the Idea”….
A lot of ladies have issues with their hip flexors that cause them to bend significantly at the waist during any kind of squat: air, back, front, etc. Here’s what it looks like:
You’ll notice that we’ve hit all the necessary points of performance for this to be considered a technically sufficient squat:
-Lumbar curve
-Weight on heels
-Knees tracking over toes
-Hips back and down until the hip crease is below the knee
However, we know that in this position Nicole wouldn’t be able to handle a significant load on her back or in the front rack.
A super quick and easy fix for this issue is just a modified goblet squat. Grab a 10-15 lbs weight and hold it away from the body. Then just go down into the bottom of a squat and hold for 2-3 seconds. It looks like this:
By moving the center of mass forward, we force Nicole’s torso up and her hips down. By making her go down slowly into this position and holding it, we activate the muscles that she’ll want to recruit when she goes into the front squat and/or improve her air squat and back squat by spreading the love between her anterior and posterior chain.
I recommend 2-3 sets, 3-5 reps, 10-15 lbs before a squat WOD. Stay at the bottom for 2-3 seconds and stay tight.
For post-WOD work, we need to address that hip flexor tightness, and nothing does it better than the wall stretch:
-Back knee as close to the wall as possible.
-Torso as upright as possible.
-Flex the quad/hip flexor of the down leg for 5 seconds, relax for 10 seconds.
-Repeat for six rounds on either leg.
-In between switching legs, go down into the bottom of a squat and see if you can notice a difference.
I get all my meat and eggs from Alison (if you’re interested, email her, your taste buds will thank you) except for Wild Caught fish that I buy frozen at the Ft. Myer Commissary.
Breakfast: 4-5 eggs, bacon or sausage, maybe avocado, definitely coffee with coconut milk and club soda.
Lunch: 8-12 oz of meat cooked in bacon fat, butter, lard, coconut oil or olive oil, sauteed veggies cooked in the same or steamed veggies with microwaved fat drizzled on. Some examples:
Ground Pork and Kale
Whole Chicken and Brussel Sprouts with Olive Oil drizzled on
Dinner: Pretty much the same as dinner, but if it’s post-WOD I may add some starchier paleo veggies like winter squash or sweet potato, but still 8-12 oz of meat cooked in bacon fat, butter, lard, coconut oil or olive oil, sauteed veggies cooked in the same or steamed veggies with microwaved fat drizzled on. Some examples:
Ground Beef and Carrots sauteed in bacon fat with fennel
Wild Caught Haddock braised in coconut milk with frozen broccoli
If I’m trying to cut some weight, then I have to cut back on the fat intake a little. But my body’s “set point weight” seems to be about 215 and I can pretty much gorge myself on Paleo foods, still perform well, and not go over that weight. I like Monique Ames’ summary of Paleo Eating for weight loss versus performance.
One of the most valuable things you can do as an athlete and I can do as a coach is give you a tailored Warmup and Cooldown to address weaknesses or injuries.
Chris K. of Potomac Crossfit talked to me about knee pain that was continuing to increase over the last few weeks. Chris had a partial meniscectomy (partial removal of the lateral meniscus) on each knee, about 2 years apart.
Most important thing about giving or receiving Warmup/Cooldown advice is to provide feedback. I think that the model I’m gave Chris can work - but the only way to really tell is to get Chris’ feedback.
So I gave him this guidance today, and in two weeks he’s going to tell me if there’s any change. If there is, we keep at it until we don’t see any more positive change and/or we don’t see any pain. If we don’t see change, we throw this away and come up with something else.
Here’s the guidance:
Warmup
1) Perform Daily, Catalyst Athletics Warmup.
2) This is designed for total body explosive movement prep, but very good hip, knee, and ankle flexibility stuff. Certainly won’t hurt your shoulders to do this stuff.
3) Add specific movements, we’ll call this movement prep, that you will be including in the WOD within the warmup. So if the WOD is:
“Kelly”
5 Rounds
Run 400m
25 Wallball, 20 lbs
25 Box Jump, 20 in
you’d add broken up sets of Run 200m, 7 Wallball, 7 Box Jump at some point in the warmup. This gets your CNS ready for the specific movements you are doing, but doesn’t overload you with intensity or volume.
4) So the total Warmup would look something like this:
Two Rounds:
Partial CA Warmup
Run 200m
Partial CA Warmup
7 Wallball, 20 lbs
Partial CA Warmup
7 Box Jump, 20 in
Partial CA Warmup
5) I picked two rounds for the above example because that’s about how much time I want you warming up before a fairly long WOD like “Kelly.” Total rounds will change depending on how you feel and how long the WOD is.
5a. If it’s a longer WOD, but not a lot of movements that would hurt your knees, then shorter warmup.
5b. If it’s a longer WOD with lots of movement that would hurt your knees, longer warmup, but less intense - more dynamic stretching, less movement prep.
5c. If a shorter WOD with movements that hurt your knees, you’ll want to do a longer warmup with a good amount of dynamic stretching, but also a good amount of movement prep.
Post-WOD
1) Let’s start with the basics here and see if we see any progress. Overall goal is to have extremely good flexibility/mobility in the lower extremities so we put as little strain on the knee as possible.
2) Baseline:
Quad Roller
ITB Lax Ball
Gastroc Lax Ball (this is each side of your calf)
Straight Leg Hamstring PNF
Psoas PNF
Calf PNF
Quad PNF
Hips PNF (You can do these on a box or on the ground. You can also do this with a strap on your back and cross your leg Do these on a box.)
3) I’ve found that slightly changing the angle of attach on both stretching and myofascial help a lot.
4) For the Roller and Lax Ball, 30sec to 1 minute is the goal for each movement.
5) I need feedback. Try this for two weeks and at the end of two weeks, tell me:
5a. How many WODs you did.
5b. How many times you did the warmup and post-WOD work.
5c. Any change in pain or mobility after two weeks.
Posted a comment on Weakness Bias Training, Crossfit Journal, by Dan Williams.
I’m going to echo a lot of what Leo S. said, as his advice mirrors my experience.
I agree with Leo that the idea of quantifying weaknesses, even subjectively, is good for both coach and athlete. Giving yourself hard (less soft?) evidence in the form of numbers will focus you both better.
I strongly agree with Leo that attacking weaknesses as part of the warmup and/or supplemental work has shown the greatest increase in capacity within those weaknesses compared to tweaking programming.
Most weaknesses, if it is not dietary, is modal and either a strength or mobility/flexibility issue is at the heart of it.
If the weakness is something like pullups, it’s usually a “skinny guy” that doesn’t have the strength or a “big guy” that has to lose body fat or lacks the mobility in the shoulder joint to effectively kip. Your approach to these two athletes shouldn’t be the same.
For the “skinny guy” we just need to develop strength. A supplemental plan that we’ve used frequently with good success is:
Skinny Guy Pullup Development
Day 1
3-5 sets x 10 seconds, Flexed Arm Hang
Day 2
3-5 sets x 5 Negatives, jump up over the bar, slowly lower down to full extension
Day 3
Kipping pullup practice with band. Don’t work to failure, just trying to encourage good muscle memory. If you need more than a blue band, sub Adrian’s Kipping Pullup progression on this day.
Big Guy Pullup Development
If we had a bigger guy, we would obviously tweak his diet (depending on his goals) and work on some serious shoulder mobility. Kelly Starrett and C. J. Martin are good sources for places to start. The same principle applies that we used above: give the athlete 10 minutes a few days per week of warmup/supplemental work.
Developing Everything Else (modally)
The same approach can be taken in commonly challenging movements like Ring Dips, Handstand Pushups, Snatch or Jerk. Identify whether it’s a strength or mobility issue. Then prescribe a specific protocol to address that issue.
Developing Everything Else (generally)
For issues like “Stamina” or “Power”, I do believe some amount of specific programming is called for. However, within more developed athletes, coaches need to be careful to recognize what can get significantly better, and what can only get a little better.
Trying to get a 30 round Cindy out of a 5′5, 185 lbs, male athlete with a 225 lbs squat snatch and a 295 lbs clean and jerk is going to kill both of you. His capacity in longer body weight based WODs is never going to be at that level, and even if programmed extremely well (focusing on interval based training for these weaknesses, rather than consistent AMRAP 20 minutes WODs) you will nearly always cause more damage than improvement.
Better to make him passable at Cindy and Kelly, and get him to crush Isabel, Grace, and Fran. Both psychologically and physically you will produce a better athlete.
So I have some folks who I’m coaching from the first Paleo Challenge we did in 2010. Some saw some initial weight loss and then plateaued pretty quickly. They haven’t seen significant improvement since.
I’ve been coaching them over email, but that’s really not a great way for me to track. So I’m moving it over to my blog. Here’s the next step in my guidance to them based on Robb Wolf’s “How Many Calories to Lean Out?” post.
OK guys, judging from your answers to my last inquiry, moving forward I’d like those of you that need to “intensify your compliance level” (aka, be strict) to do so. For those that are being strict, I’d like you to give tracking a try for two weeks. What I’d like to see is the following:
1) Tracking.
a. Setup an account on www.fitday.com.
b. Make it public by going to http://www.fitday.com/fitness/PublicSettings.html.
c. Once you’ve made it public, reply to this email with the link.
d. Track your weight in the weight tab. Enter it daily.
2) Macronutrient and Caloric Intake.
a. I’d like you to calculate your goal caloric intake by taking your body weight and multiplying it by 13.
b. I’d like you to calculate your protein intake (in grams) by using your body weight. So if you weigh 160 lbs, your goal should be 160g of protein. Grams of protein does not equal grams of meat!! For instance:
1 oz Chicken Thigh = 28 grams Chicken Thigh - this is just a conversion from english to metric
28 grams Chicken Thigh = 7 grams Protein + 4.4 grams Fat - the rest of that 28 grams is water and micronutrients
So we’re looking for grams of protein to equal bodyweight daily. If you’re a little shy of this number by 10%, I’m not going to worried.
c. I’d like your effective carbohydrate load to not exceed 50g daily. Fiber does not count as effective carbohydrate. Just like protein and fat, Fitday can do the work for you here. But just to make sure you understand:
10 oz Broccoli = 280 grams Broccoli - same english to metric conversion, using bigger numbers to enhance your understanding.
280 grams Broccoli = 18.8 grams Carbohydrate - 7.4 grams fiber = 11.4 grams Carbohydrate
d. Take the remaining calories from fat. Here’s the math for a 160 lbs athlete:
Weight: 160 lbs
Total Calories per day (BWx13) = 2080 cal
Protein (g): 160g
Calories from Protein (4 cal/gram Protein): 640 cal
Effective Carbohydrate (g): 50g
Calories from Carbohydrate (4 cal/gram Carbohydrate): 200 cal
Remainder Calories: 2080 - 640 - 200 = 1240 cal
Grams Fat (9 cal/gram Fat) = 137 g Fat
Give or take 5% on any of these numbers and we’ll be fine. Don’t obsess, and don’t even do this is you think you’re going to obsess.
If you want to stick with just choosing Paleo Foods, go for it. A good qualitative description for how to reduce caloric consumption to lose weight while staying Paleo is right here by Monique Ames.
Either way, email me (or post to comments) if you are going to give it a try and keep me posted. Let’s plan on following up on March 19th. If you’ve replied to this email with a Fitday link or saying “I’m just going to do what Monique said”, then we can move forward with some new inputs and see what the results are.
Just wanted to get this on my blog so the links would show up:
Welcome to the second Paleo Challenge of 2010 at Potomac Crossfit!
I hope everybody is excited to get started this weekend. We continue to have monster success with our athletes who are taking the plunge and deciding to eat THE RIGHT WAY!
This is not a diet, this is how you are designed to eat.
The Big Picture
As a read ahead, please check out:
PCF’s Intro on How and What to Eat by Alison McConnell
Another good intro that I like is:
Monique Ames’ Paleo Introduction
I’ll be communicating via the Paleo Challenge Comments Section after this email, so please jump over there and keep an eye out for updates. I’ll be posting information, answering questions, and posting times/dates for follow up Video Teleconferences via the Athletes Forum. Please take advantage of these resources!
The Nitty Gritty
Realize that you’ve got to “Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing” on the Paleo Diet. Some sources say that salt or vinegar is a no-no on the Paleo Diet. Some sources say only eat lean meats and as much fruit as you want.
What I’m going to tell you is two things:
1) Everybody’s different in how they respond to food.
2) The #1 thing that you should avoid during your Paleo Challenge is the #1 thing that you want.
Let’s explore that second point a little bit more:
I’ve coached dozens of men and women in implementing the Paleo Diet. I have had exactly 100% see significant improvement in how they look/feel/perform among those that were compliant. You can take a look at just some of our Before/After picturesCrossfit Seattle or any of the thousands that have done this as evidence.
The biggest stumbling block for people continues to be the oft repeated “But ____________ is Paleo!!”
Fill the blank in with whatever you really really want that still technically falls within the Paleo Food List.
This could be bananas and mango, it could be almond butter. It’s also almost certainly being argued for by an athlete that has significant weight to lose.
Do I ascribe this defensiveness to lack of discipline or coachability? No. This is how their body is wired to eat, and it’s why these issues are so hard to overcome.
So, if you have a significant amount of body fat to lose, what you need to do is identify what you’re going to really really want - and don’t eat it for 37 days.
How to Execute
We’ll talk about this some more this Saturday, but here are some meal ideas and resources for you to get started. Again, the Paleo Challenge Comments Section and the weekly Video Teleconferences via Athletes Forum will be great ways for you to ask questions and get answers. But there’s a lot of great info out there:
Every Day Paleo
My Paleo Kitchen
Paleo Food
Paleo Intro
The Whole 9 Life
Next Step
Come by the meeting at Potomac Crossfit this Saturday, 1:30pm. Definitely get your friends and family involved, it’s free for them too (here’s the link to register). If you have any questions, just post them to the Paleo Challenge Comments Section.
Good Luck! or